Bitrate Issues

[duraysteeus]

All,

I've been getting really frustrated with trying to render movies in Vegas to MPEG-2 so they don't have to be recompressed in DVD Architect. It seems like anyting that is under an hour and 30 minutes renders to an MPEG-2 file that can be used in DVD Architect. However, as soon as it's even and hour and 35 minutes, DVD architect says the media is too big for the DVD.

Now, I'm rendering my audio seperately into compatible Ac3 audio at 192 kbps. Also, I've tried using all those bit rate calculators with CBR, VBR or 2 pass VBR and I still have issues with movies over 1 hour and 30 minutes. I follow those calculators to a T with bitrates they suggest.

My menus are not that complicated. Maybe 4 pages of text and still frame chapters - that's about it. No moving menus or looping audio in the background. So why can't I get and hour and 45 minute movie to fit on a regular DVD?

-Dustin

[guns1inger]

Make sure that your DVD Architect project settings match your rendered files. This is the most common cause of re-compressing.

[stars]

Hi....
The bitrate of the video file should be approx 4.5-5.0 Mbit...Its not an excact calculation
becausa I am at work ATM....

The DVD-5 have approx 4466 Mb space and that include video, audio, menus, menu sound and
system files...So when you calculate your DVD compl. go for 100Mb under max size....

There are some programs that do the calculation very good, but why author a DVD that is to large
for a DVD-5...Some times I have got an authored DVD that have 30Mb over max size....
Thing to to is to runit through DVDshrink....

stars...

[duraysteeus]

Has anyone experimented with changing the I-Frames and B-Frames values when preparing to render? I lowered the values and it seems like it didn't make a difference in size or quality.

[Cornucopia]

The distribution of I vs. B vs. P frame types is NOT what determines size, it's just the AVG. bitrate. That distribution WILL determine quality...

***Strong WARNING: Don't mess with I/B/P distribution unless you really know what you're doing. There are a few common cadences that are used for most material, and THOSE are the ones which should be used, unless there are certain special circumstances (complicated editing/motion in material, extremely LONG material, requirements for post-editing, etc). Arbitrarily changing the distribution (without regard to the particular affect/influence on the materials' bitrate needs) will almost invariably hurt the quality, and make it harder for the player (esp. settop players) to read without error. There are even some sequences that would be considered "illegal" (IBBBBBBBBB... comes to mind, though I don't know if the encoder would allow that--hope not).

How about posting screenshots of your settings?...

Scott